I doubt I would have read this article (through HN) if the submitter hadn't added "Falsifies End User Documents" to the submission title (actual title of the article is "Revealed: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2 Billion on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels"). So I'm glad that technical detail was emphasized, because a lot of this story deals with technicalities. It's not a secret that the Pentagon spends hundreds of millions to fund rebel groups -- as the article points out, they put out press releases and official PowerPoints about it. But what is interesting is the obfuscation of details, such as the special ops "end-user certificate" which is so vaguely worded that it basically implies the Pentagon could transfer weapons to anyone it feels like. "NATO allies and partners" instead of "Republic of Iraq", for instance.

I loved the example of one of the publicly-available arms contracts being altered after reporters sent questions; even in something as big as arms deals and proxy wars, someone in the bureaucracy will fuck up the paperwork: https://www.occrp.org/assets/makingakilling/pentagon-procure...